Grand Isle

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🎙️ EPISODE 633: 01.05.23 Starting in 2020, I decided to watch & review the entire Nicolas Cage filmography in alphabetical order. This is 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 – Chapter 32. Well, today we thankfully close out the dreaded "G's" — the worst letter in the alphabet for Nicolas Cage by a Gargantuan amount (although, our last entry was sort of a pleasant surprise). On paper, this one looks about as bad or worse than any of it. But if you know anything about me and this mini-series at this point: I love a Grade A late-2010s Cageian flop. This is right in my wheelhouse. Among other things, it had: • A ridiculous but never quite plodding story? ✅ • A highly specific setting for which Cage doesn't even attempt to adopt the local accent? ✅ • Kelsey Grammar doing a WAY over-the-top version of said accent? ✅

The movie begins in the quaint little town of Grand Isle, Louisinia (on a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico) two hours due south of New Orleans (it's a real place btw). We see a woman answer the door of a grand old Southern mansion and buy cookies from two Girl Scouts, making one of the girls uncomfortable. Hmmm. Later, there's a break in at the place and Cage shoots the fleeing robber. The next morning, the body is gone...


Cut to an interrogation room, and we Officer Kelsey Grammar and his incredibly dumb accent questioning a beat-up guy who's a murder suspect ....


This is the setup for a mystery that you already know is going to have a very dumb answer. We enter flashback mode and see this young guy at a diner trying to do some kind of business deal with an uninterested dude. He's there with his wife, and little baby who's sick. This guy, the suspected murderer, is down-on-his-luck handyman Buddy, just trying to make ends meet. He winds up at the Cage residence and they talk about mending his fence and the armed forces...


Inside the home, Cage's crazy wife, Fancy, is singing in negligee. He's sitting in the corner wearing sunglasses and she pours him a drink. It's their anniversary. But Cage is taking a nap under those shades so she slaps him...


She threatens his manhood and he gets physical with her, but doesn't follow through right there. I can see where this is going. In the background, there's a news report of a 16yo boy gone missing as Fancy strokes a voodoo doll. OK maybe I don't see where this is going. Cage is boarding up the property for an incoming hurricane.

Outside, Fancy begins flirting with Buddy and when he gets a booboo doing the manual labor, she brings him inside and kisses it "all better." Cage sees everything...


So a perturbed Cage does a little target practice right next to Buddy...


First of all, when did he put those beer bottles on the fence and why wasn't Buddy like "why are you putting those beer bottles on the fence in a manner as though you intend to shoot at them?" You know the drill. Do. Not. Worry. About. It.

Buddy can't finish the job before the storm so Cage won't pay the full amount. Then his car won't start so he goes back up to the house. Cage won't let him borrow his car to get back to his wife so he's stuck there. He calls his wife and she's not happy about it, but Cage has some wine to share —what else you gonna do with a hurricane coming?...


Some classic freakout-style Cage there in a small amount. Nobody does abrupt, insane, almost out-of-place laughter better.

They settle in for an awkward dinner together...


There's another report on the news about a 4th missing teen, and Cage passes out as Fancy gives a tour of the house. Buddy finds a door to the basement with half a dozen locks on it. Hmmm what could that be? Probably not all those missing kids, right?! (You know that it is, but you don't know why so you keep watching.)

She brings him up to the bedroom. He sees her collection of voodoo dolls as she changes into something more comfortable. She ramps up the flirting HARDCORE and starts touching him. At first he doesn't stop her, but then he does and he trips in the process, waking up Cage who comes upstairs as his wife undoing buddy's pants with her high heels. But he doesn't catch them, seemingly intentionally so? ...


Then Buddy falls asleep on a couch. He's awoken by thunder and sees Cage sitting in same room, holding a gun. They go up to the attic for some whiskey. There, Cage reveals he knows about his naval service somehow. Now he's talking about his own short, embarrassing marine record. He was actually medically discharged right before his entire squad died in Vietnam. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this is a period piece (lol). It's supposed to be set in 1988 for some reason...


He's pretty beat up about all that "missing Vietnam" stuff. Conversely, Buddy saw some heavy shit in Iraq? I guess they're referring to this thing. Extremely specific!

Then, Comrade Cage rails against the military industrial complex lol...


Next, Cage drops the bombshell. A bag full of cash (20K) to kill his wife. She has blood cancer, he says. "It's about to get real bad for her," he tells him...


"Let us do something for each other that the military wouldn't, solider to soldier," Cage says. You know, that classic thing soldiers do for other soldiers? Accepting 20K to murder their wives? You know! And so Buddy says, alright. I mean, she's got the damn blood cancer!

Buddy finds her in the bath singing along to Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit." And she drops some random music and racial history on his ass...


They end up having a deep chat about their fucked up childhoods. They start making out before it cuts to present day Detective Kelsey Grammar...


Lol at Grammar's accent one more time, and Lol that Buddy's justifying sleeping with her because she was "sexy as hell." Back in the flashback, we see they had sex and then Fancy finds the cyanide and he comes clean. It's all very matter of fact and she says she's gonna take care of it. The storm intensifies as Cage adds more boards to fortify the house. He sees his wife and he's pretty pissed Buddy didn't kill her yet.

She pleads for them to let go of all their shit. She tells Cage that she loves him. And then she stabs him in the hand with a giant knife and — well — he's not too happy about that...


Cage knocks out Fancy and goes after Buddy, but Buddy gets the best of him and ties him up. He takes his car keys and the full amount for the work he did on the fence out of his wallet. He agrees to take Fancy away but Cage says he should have a look in their basement first. And laughs maniacally about it...


As he's unlocking the door, she starts shooting at him. Then she unties Cage and it seems like they've been in on this plot together the whole time? He finds another dude totally drugged in some dilapidated room. Was this the robber Cage shot? Who the fuck was that guy? He says "there's more of us" as he clutches a rag with Chinese writing on it. OK.

Cage then follows him up to the attic where buddy gets a gun and they fight again...


These fight scenes aren't half bad, honestly. Fancy knocks him out with a frying pan as he tries to escape and he wakes up in his truck with the drugged dude next to him, shot through the head.

Cut to Grammar again as the flashback catches up with the present. Inspector Kelsey Grammar lays out his brilliant ideas about what he thinks happened on that fateful night...


Another cop, lady cop, comes in with information about a missing Asian teen girl who was last seen wearing a dress with Mandarin writing on it. This matches Buddy's description of the torn fabric that the dead dude was holding. So they get a search warrant for Cage's house.

As they search the house, lady cop and two officers go down in the basement, leaving just one stooge to watch over Fancy and Cage. She finds a series of locked doors in a hallway that definitely doesn't look like it would be part of this 150+ year old southern mansion's cellar, and they hear a girl yell for help.

Because of course he does, Cage gets the better of the inept cop with the old "my cat is stuck up in a tree, would you shoot him down for me?" trick lol. Works every time...


He takes off in the Mustang and they arrest Fancy. Buddy gets released, but his wife still leaves town with the baby. Damn, Buddy can't catch a break.

Cut to some time in the future. Cage is still on the loose as Grand Isle recovers from the hurricane and the scandal: Fancy and Cage had been kidnapping teens and forcing them to procreate to "expand their family" because she couldn't have kids. Yup.

Buddy is depressed, living alone. He's sitting in the a diner one day when Cage shows up, cleanly shaven, in his Marine uniform, holding his wife and baby hostage...


Cage is still going on and on about Vietnam. He gets Buddy to admit to being a coward during his own war thing. All of this seems neither here nor there?? He lets go of the wife and baby and takes Buddy hostage. Kelsey Grammar and some other cops show up...


Lol he's still so pissed about the government and how they treat soldiers after war. It's like there are two movies happening at once. He gets gunned down and it's a pretty hilarious acting job by Cage. It's truly psychotic how the half-assed, shoehorned in idea about veterans' treatment wound up being such a central part of this. I mean, you know, in addition to the sicko shit that this one veteran was actually a part of. That being, once again: he and his wife kidnapped young people and forced them to have babies against their will. As we learn in a final news report as a recovering Buddy makes amends with his wife as she passes him a toy baby doll...


Yikes! Stupid and bad? Yes. But entertaining in that late 2010s Cageian way? Absolutely. The film ends with a final, tacked on dedication...


Committed to the troops till the bitter end… as I am committed to giving these subpar movies way too high of scores. Semper Fi.

THE VERDICT: 6 CAGES OUT OF 10 • CLICK HERE for all 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 Chapters + Ongoing Rankings.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 632B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 634 ⫸

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Grand Isle is a 2019 American action thriller film directed by Stephen Campanelli and starring Nicolas Cage. It was released on November 15, 2019.